Islam in Britain, 1558–1685

Jewish Questions in <i>The Three Ladies of London</i>

“…Conversion to one faith means apostasy from another, and, as Nabil Matar reports, 'the punishment for apostasy in Islam, as it was in Christianity, was death'. 61 Death -even the threat of death -is not good for business, and, given that his clientele include Christian merchants, Gerontus's fears of being blamed for Mercadorus's apostasy may easily be read in an economic light.…”

The Discreet Charm of the Arabist Theory: Juan Andrés, Historicism, and the De-Centering of Montesquieu's Europe

“…70 In England, Hermetics and Rosicrucians had already recognized Arabic as 'the linguistic medium through which much of the Hermetic corpus had been transmitted to Europe in the medieval period'. 71 Even in France, Pierre Daniel Huet, bishop of Avranches, had begun his 1670 letter to Monsieur de Segrais by saying that the invention of the roman was 'due to the Orientals', 72 and that 'it is the Arabs, in my opinion, that have given us the art of rhyming.' 73 But it was especially in Italy, where Andrés was exiled, that the question of an Arab influence in the development of European 'wisdom' had been tackled -since Nicolò Cusano's De docta ignorantia (1440) -with the 'patriotic' aim of pointing to Pythagoras' school of Crotone as the Italic origin of western philosophy.…”

‘An Idea for a Principality’? Encountering the East in Bacon'sNew Atlantis

“…•.1• Matar has shown that many contemporary Europeans, whilst they may have seen Islamic countries as a military threat, also found aspects of Islam's cultural and religious characteristics appealing, and in particular that they admired the Islamic model of administration. 35 Bacon would not be alone, then, in finding aspects of Eastern governance and culture interesting, although for most of his contemporaries the East remained an object of fear rather than one of admiration. Thus Richard Knolles' General/ Historie of the Turkes, first published in 1603, admires the organisation and unity of the Ottoman Empire, particularly as it reflects on the disunity and sinfulness of Christian Europe, but nonetheless sees Islamic culture as a threat, 'the greatest terror of the world'.…”